Made by the Good or the State
by Lady President Romana
Summary: "You couldn't imagine lewdies actually agreeing to have all this done to them in a film, whether it was made by the Good or the State, you couldn't imagine them being allowed to take these films without like interfering with what was going on." [ Trigger warnings inside. Read at own caution. ]


**Made by the Good or the State**

**TRIGGER WARNINGS:** Non-graphic descriptions of rape [mostly focusing on the thought processes of the victim, with less of an emphasis of the description of the physical action itself], graphic descriptions of violence,  
violence and rape under the pretense of the making of a film, discussion of murder in a casual manner. Not a happy story. Read at own discretion. You have been warned.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Hello there, dear readers! So... I was re-reading A Clockwork Orange the other day, and I came upon the quote below, that occurs when Alex is being forced to view the films in the brainwashing scenes.  
Alex wonders how the films he's viewing could have been made by the government when they depict acts of violence in a way that was clearly not faked. And thus, I began to wonder: Who were the people in the films? Why were they acting in them? And so, this one-shot was born. I'm most likely going to leave it here, unless you lot want me to write more in this little universe of mine, in which case I might post a sequel one-shot. But it definetly won't be a multi-chapter fic like my other ACO fic I have going. [Which you should totally check out if you haven't done,  
b-t-dubs.] I'll focus on my OFC as the sole main character in this piece, and though it takes place in the universe of A Clockwork Orange, no characters from the actual source material appear in it. Alrighty, without further ado, here comes the story! Enjoy!

/_\/_\/_\

_"You couldn't imagine lewdies actually agreeing to have all this done to them in a film, whether it was made by the Good or the State, you couldn't imagine them being allowed to take these films without like interfering with what was going on."_  
_- Alex, A Clockwork Orange; part two, chapter five._

Ari had been in prison for two years before she even heard one utterance of the word 'Ludovico'.

It had occurred during one particularly boring lunch day. As with most lunches in this dirt-hole they called a prison,  
Ari was dragging her time in the cafeteria out by using her white plastic fork to move the peas and corn bits to the right, and then to the left, and over to the right again. This continued for a while, until she decided she'd better get cracking on the mashed potatoes, the only decent thing on her tray, if she wanted something in her stomach before she was escorted' back to her cell. [And, of course, by 'escorted back to her cell', she meant 'dragged by the sleeves of her drab brown prison uniform back to the room with the peeling paint on the walls, and the excretement of her pig-like cellmates piled up in the corner'.]

Suddenly, the strange word managed to pique her curiosity, and she turned her head to see who had spoken it.

"I'm tellin' ya, mate," a woman who appeared to be in her mid-thirties was saying to a man who looked around the same age. "They're sayin' it gets ya outta 'ere real quick-like."

"You're bluffin'," the man shakes his head, spooning another bit of peas into his mouth. Ari noticed that he chewed with his mouth open. She resisted the urge to comment on it.

"I ain't. Swear it to God Almighty." The woman raised a hand in the air, nodding vigorously. "Heard one of 'em guards yammerin' on 'bout it the other day in me cell, I did."

Ari leaned forward, barely noticing as she did it. "What's this about getting out quickly?" she asked, one surprised brow quirking up. Along with noticing how the man spoke while he chewed, she also noted how posh she sounded,  
compared to these two and their cockney accents.

The woman nodded. "Like I was sayin' to Nate 'ere..." She motioned to the man, Nate, who nodded with interest as he continued to shove mashed potatoes and chicken strips down his throat like it was his job. "...I 'eard some of 'em guards talkin' 'bout some film they're makin'. They've got most o' the parts cast now, but all they need is some young girl to be the lead. I'd try to get in, but thirty's the age limit, and 'm older than that."

_I'm only twenty,_ Ari thought to herself. _I could do it._

"They're lookin' for a girl?" Nate sounded exasperated. "Lis, you could'a told me! I was gettin' excited."

"I was just gonna mention tha' part, mate," Lis said with a shrug. "She could do it," she said offhandedly, motioning to Ari.

Ari's eyes widened. "Are you serious?"

Lis nodded, with small shrug. "Why not? It'll get you out faster, innit? I say go fer it."

Ari thought about that for a moment. Getting out faster was definitely a gleaming prospect.

"Is there some sort of limit for crimes committed? Like, if you committed a certain degree of crimes, you can't be in it?" she asked, frowning. If there was, she was out of there completely.

"They didn' say anythin' 'bout it," Lis replied.

"Why are they looking in a prison?" Ari wondered aloud, more to herself, really, than her conversational partners.  
"If they want to make a film, they should look for real actors, not whatever desperate dirt they can scrounge up from the floor of this place."

"Even if I was young enough, I wouldn't wanna do it," Lis said casually. "Cos maybe they're lookin' in this bloody place because there 're people desperate enough to do somethin' outlandish for the chance to get free."

"What, do you think it's some sort o' dirty movie?" Nate snickered around his mouthful of chicken and potatoes.  
"Bit insane, even for the prison. They wouldn't endorse the thing if it was somethin' like that. They've got some decency here."

Lis snorted into her food at that. Ari noticed that she hadn't so much as poked at it. She also noticed that Lis was dreadfully thin. "Listen, mate, I'm tellin' ya. Somethin's not right 'ere."

"Yeah, sure thin', Lis," Nate rolled his eyes. "Ain't puttin' crank calls 'bout conspiracy theories wot got'cha thrown in 'ere?"

Of course, Ari had heard of those people who fought against the government were being sent to jail with the rest of the common criminal trash, but she had yet to see anybody who actually hadn't done anything serious.

Until now, that is, obviously.

"Fine, yeah," Lis admitted. "But they weren' crank calls. I was reportin' my rights bein' taken away."

The two continued to argue about politics, until one of the guards near the door called out, "Lunchtime's over! Back to your cells!"

And with that, Ari knew about the films. As she was escorted back to the dingy cell she now called home, she made a mental note to check with the guard about getting a part in one of them. Her freedom was at stake as she stood.

/_\/_\/_\

Two days later, Ari's wish was granted. Or rather, she was granted audience with a man that she was told ran the company that was to make the film. After Lis and Nate had spoken about it, the whole prison seemed abuzz with talk of what the film was to be about, with most of the population lamenting about how they were too old, or not female, and so could not star in the thing, and gain their ticket to freedom.

The room into which Ari was lead was an almost blinding shade of white. Her green eyes squinted on reflex as she stumbled in, and she only barely noticed the guard bark out, "One hour!", before he left her alone.

Well, alone wasn't exactly the term to describe it. In the far left corner, there was a dark mahogany desk, with a sour-looking man in his midforties sitting in an overstuffed chair behind it. His head was bald, except for a few hairs he somehow managed to comb over his shiny head. Ari supposed he thought it made up for the baldness. It didn't.

"Mari Harris, I presume," the man started. "Please, take a seat." He motioned to the very expensive-looking chair that stood on the other side of the desk. Ari didn't like how his eyes were roaming her body like that. He was old enough to be her father, for Christ's sake.

"Ari Harris," she corrected him, sitting down lightly in the chair, and daintily crossing her legs. Being dainty was hard to do when you were dressed head-to-toe in a clunky prison jumpsuit, but Ari tried her best.

"Of course, Sari," he gave her a very fake-looking smile, before continuing. "You may call me Dr. Fredrickson.  
Before we begin, I'd like to ask you a few questions about yourself."

"Fine," Ari shrugged, refusing to comment on his messing up her name yet again. She made a mental note to mess up his name when she got the chance.

"Why were you sentenced to the state jail?"

"First-degree murder, two counts." The response was almost automatic at this point. She had said it so many times. She didn't even bother to put it into her own words anymore. She just used the legal terms at this point.

"Who did you kill?" The doctor's tone was condescending, as if he was speaking to a three year old. She knew that he already knew what she had done, and not just the murders, either. The numerous times she had snatched things from stores, the beatings, the drug use. The list went on and on.

Ari shrugged at his question. That was the second time she had shrugged today, she thought. This man was making her shrug a lot. "Two homeless men."

"Why did you do it?"

"It was bored, and I had nothing better to do," Ari replied lightly. "I never meant to kill them. Just to rough them up a bit. I suppose I got carried away."

"Were you alone during this act?" She noted that the doctor's hands were folded on the top of his rather large, round gut.

"No," she said truthfully.

"Who was with you?"

"My droogs."

"Your what?"

Nadsat. For the first time since she had gotten caught, she spoke nadsat. Strange, feeling the familiar language of the nighttime streets roll off her tongue like it was nothing.

"Friends," she clarified. "My friends."

"I see. Did your friends coerce you into this... act of violence?"

"No. I was the one who suggested it." Which was utterly true. She was their leader, after all. Her droogs had managed to scatter before she was taken into custody, but they were there too, watching, helping. She supposed the glasses of moloko plus that they had all taken from the old Korova were a big part in Ari's decision, but that didn't mean she wasn't to be held accountable for her actions.

"Right." Dr. Fredrickson leaned down to grab at his expensive, felt-tipped pen that seemed to Ari like it managed to cost more than her entire wardrobe back home. "Well, miss Lari..." the doctor started off. Ari hadn't the energy to correct him at this point, and so let him continue with what he was saying. "...It seems that, from what I gather, you would be the perfect candidate for our little film. Why don't you call the guard in now?"

A sharp contrast to his previous disinterest in her, his squinty brown eyes had an almost predatory gleam in them, as if he was some sort of cat that had caught a mouse in his trap. There was no getting out now.

Freedom, Ari thought. A bit of unwanted creeping from some old pervert is worth it. You'll be free within the week.  
Walking the streets. Seeing the sun through something other than a window with rusty bars on it.

/_\/_\/_\

The day she was to report to the building where the film was shot, she was awoken sharply by the rattling of the bars on the door to the cell. Her cellmates, regretfully, managed to jolt awake as well, rubbing their eyes and muttering obscenities under their breath.

"6629765?" the guard practically shouted into the cell. Ari sat up in her cot. That was her number.

"Today's filmin'," the guard continued. "You're to be escorted to the buildin' where it's happenin', and they said it'll take all day."

Ari nodded, standing up and walking toward the door, where the guard unlocked it, and immediately slapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. She inwardly groaned, but dared not show it on her actual face.

As soon as she entered the dirty brick building, a woman who couldn't have been much older than Ari herself rushed forward to slap a nametag on Ari's chest. Her fingernails were painted a sickening shade of green that reminded Ari of vomit. Her hair was firetruck red. Appropriately enough, her nametag read 'Ginger'.

"Twenty minutest to filming," Ginger said sharply, blue eyes narrowing to run over Ari, taking in her prison uniform. She reached out her hand again, this time holding a brass key, and unlocked the younger woman's handcuffs. It felt nice to finally have her hands free.

"Go change," Ginger commanded, pointing towards a small door to the left. "Pick something from the rack. And for god's sake, look presentable."

Slightly taken aback at this woman's blatant rudeness, but nonetheless, managed to excuse herself from the bustle of the studio, and duck into the closet-sized room.

As promised, there was a short rack of clothing waiting for her when she entered the room. To her distaste, the rack was completely made up of short dresses in various shades of pastel pink and yellow. A few fluffy white cardigans, and several pairs of black mary-janes completed this set of clothing. It vaguely reminded her of the dresses her mother used to make her wear at Easter.

Heaving an exaggerated sigh, she grabbed a butter-yellow thing, with a pleated waist, and white swirls across the edges of the fabric.

"Pitiful..." she mumbled under her breath. "Positively pitiful."

It was bad enough she was to act in some strange film in order to buy her freedom, but now she had to dress as the image of childish perfection? The thought was almost enough to make her retch, if she had any food in her stomach. But she hadn't eaten.

Discarding her brown uniform to the side, she pulled the yellow dress over her head, adjusting it until it looked the way it was meant to. The skirt stopped just below her knees, definitely not the shortest thing she had ever worn, but the sickly yellow color was enough to make her sick again. She kicked off her sneakers, sliding her feet into the black flats, and shrugged the cream-colored cardigan over her shoulders.

Glancing over at herself in the mirror, she felt like a different woman. No longer the young lady who had been thrown into the state jail after committing a violent crime. She was playing the part of an innocent lamb, a timid mouse.

She grabbed at the handle to the door, strolling back into the disarrayed fray that was the studio, if one could call the cheap room with peeling paint on the walls a 'studio'. Besides Ginger the intern, Ari was the only woman there.

Said intern was currently talking rather enthusiastically with a man who sat behind the director's chair. Ari frowned when Ginger pointed at her, and she thought she heard the redhead mutter something along the lines of, "That's our girl."

The man behind the camera stood up and walked towards her, extending his hand out once he finally got up to her.

"Hello there." His voice was clipped and strong, like a newscaster's should be. His teeth were a gleaming artificial white, and his jet-black hair was slicked back with what looked like motor oil. His nametag read 'Stanley'.

"Are you ready to begin, Miss Harris?" he asked her. Ari's eyes flickered to his left, where Ginger stood with her arms crossed over her chest.

"I don't know," Ari said truthfully. "What are my lines?"

At that, he let out a big guffaw. "No lines, silly girl," he said to her in a tone she found extremely condescending. "Just do what your instincts tell you to."

This was beginning to sound strange. Ari cocked her head to the side, looking up at Stanley with a frown on her face. "What do you mean?"

Stanley just laughed again. "Watch. Filming on the film before yours is about to begin."

Ari turned her head towards the large matte painting that stood against the wall to her far right, taking in the rather awkward-looking old man who stood off to the side, and the group of teenage boys that stood to his other side. The boys were dressed in a extremely familiar manner.

_Nadsat boys,_ Ari thought. She'd encountered a few of the boys during her little escapades with her droogs. Always rude, always chauvinistic, always without any finesse for the finer details of crime. She did her best to avoid them at all costs.

When she turned back around to say something to Stanley, he was gone; back behind the camera, nestling into his chair, and pointing straight ahead at the set. "Action!" he called. Ari took a few steps back, watching the scene before her intently.

The old man stumbled out onto the city street setpiece, glancing around him strangely. His gray hair was shaggy and came down to his jaw. He looked homeless.

_Maybe he was,_ Ari thought to herself. _After all, they were looking in a jail for actors for this. A homeless man looking to make a quick buck would be a good place to look as well._

Swift as a bolt of lightning, the boys were in the frame, with one who looked like the leader strolling around him casually. He didn't even bother to speak, or taunt him a bit, before he brought his cane down across the old man's ankles. The man fell to the ground with a loud bang!, and the other boys immediately began raining harsh blows with their fists and feet down his frail body. With a satisfied smirk, the leader raised his large black boot into the air, and stomped down on the old man's face. Ari heard a loud crack! fill the air when he did so. _The sound of a nose breaking._

After a few more moments of kicking and punching, several more cracks that Ari knew from experience were the tell-tale signs of bones breaking, ribs cracking, and other internal organs shattering before her eyes. It barely fazed her. She had participated in such activities before. No, what got under her skin was the false pretenses. At least she was honest about what she did. These people had to disguise it under some uppity standard of making a film.

She turned on her heel, with the intention to march out of there, and head straight back

She stopped. She couldn't go home. She had no home. Home was the state jail. And the only way out of there was to participate in this... film.

She understood now why they needed to hire dirt from the prison, and homeless people looking to buy something to eat. Nobody would ever willingly sign up to be brutally beaten and tortured.

Her reverie was interrupted by Stanley's call of "CUT!" The boys obediently dissipated from the broken and bleeding old man, who was currently wrapped in a fetal position on the floor of the set, his ratty clothing stained with blood, and desperate moans of pain and anguish escaping his rusty throat.

As if it was just another casual event, a few stage hands walked up to the set with a stretcher, and picked up the old man. The dropped him unceremoniously on the thing and wheeled him out, clearly not caring much if they hurt him further.

"Alright, time for round two," Stanley muttered. "Ginger, position Miss Harris on the set."

A pair of green-fingernailed hands were suddenly on Ari's back, pushing her towards the far corner of the backdrop,  
where the old man once stood. Her heart was pounding a mile a minute in her chest, as she was told in Ginger's monotonous voice to walk out onto the set once she heard action'.

Ari nodded, as Ginger tossed a white pocketbook into her hands. Barely aware of what was happening, Ari slung it around her wrist, noticing with a frown that it was the same color as both the cardigan she wore, and the swirls on her dress.

"ACTION!"

One step forward. Two steps forward. A few more steps, and Ari was standing in the center of the stage, forcing herself to look anywhere but the camera. She attempted to play the part she was assigned, swinging the purse idly around her wrist as she walked, hearing the light clicking of her kitten heels on the floor of the set. She decided focusing on the mundane things she was doing would help her better get into character. She counted the number of clicks her heels made against the floor.

It seemed like an infinity and a half, though it was actually more like a few seconds, before the boys came strolling out onto the stage. The leader actually attempted to taunt Ari this time, though everything that came out of his mouth seemed like uniltelligable jumble, rather than actual words. She recognized him when he called her a lovely devotchka', though she made no move to respond to him.

_It'll all be over soon,_ she thought to herself. _Tough it out, Ari. You're brave. Just take it, and you'll be out free._

She flinched when his hand connected with her cheek in a violent slap. She kept her resolve as he walked around her, teasing her, taunting her.

He said things as he walked back and forth, swinging that wretched cane around and around, but Ari didn't listen.  
She attempted to think of something else. Of her old days, her old life.

As he grabbed her by the hair, and forced her mouth onto his, she thought of dropping by her droogs' houses to pick them up every evening.

As his friends laughed in the background while he continued to kiss her brutally, she thought of sitting in their booth in the old Korova.

As he continued to trail his fingers across her neck, and lower still, she thought of buying glasses of moloko plus for all the boys who showed interest in her, flipping her long hair, teasing them with glimpses of things they could never get.

As he lowered her to the ground and cut her dress open with his tiny knife, she thought of herself laughing gleefully as she and her droogs kicked a homeless man in between the legs, not giving a damn about now, or later, or the consequences of their poor decisions.

As he had his way with her, her mind didn't protest. She kicked and screamed all right, but not even the sickening sounds of the other boys laughing in the background could break her resolve, tear her away from these memories she was thinking back on. She was playing a part. The part of an innocent lamb being brutalized by a group of hoodlums. She barely felt him doing things to her that she never wanted him to do.

Her mind kept repeating the same few sentences over and over again.

_Hold on. You're getting out of jail. Hold on. This is your ticket to freedom. Endure. Hold on. You're stronger than this._

She didn't break. She held strong. She held strong until Stanley's voice, seemingly miles and miles away, called out "CUT!" for the last time.

The leader stood up, pulled his pants back on, and walked away. Walked away, off set, like she was just some toy he had finished playing with. One of the other members leaned down and rasped harshly in her ear, "Real horrorshow, little sister," before leaving as well.

_Over. It was over. Done, over. She was free. She could go._

Stanley didn't even bother saying anything to her. He walked out the door with the rest of the crew. Ginger was the last one out.

Sour, monotonous, redheaded Ginger threw her prison uniform at her like she was trash. Ari felt cold inside. It was just starting to sink in exactly what happened.

She had just been raped.

Standing up, shaking, she kicked off the mary jane shoes, the only piece of clothing that hadn't been damanged in the scuffle. Throwing the jumpsuit over her head, and buttoning it up, she mulled over what happened.

It couldn't have been rape. It had been a film. She had consented.

She felt irredeemable dirty as the guard from earlier walked into the room, and grabbed her by the elbow, slapping handcuffs on her once more, and dragged her back to the place she had long ago learned to call home.


End file.
